


Adventure and Fate

by amorae



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Bro/Jake, Dirk/Jake - Freeform, I like the part when Jake's butt invades Dirk's personal space, Ireland, Irish, Jake/Bro, Jake/Dirk, M/M, and also in which Jake English is a flaming fairy, cute and long, i'm done, in which Dirk Strider is a raging homosexual, isn't that what they're calling this ship, la la la la la, no sex though sorry, or something, there I covered all the variations, yep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-31
Updated: 2012-01-31
Packaged: 2017-10-30 09:37:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/330325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amorae/pseuds/amorae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roxy Lalonde will not take no for an answer. Which is how Dirk finds himself standing in the center of a dance club called "the Cocksucker," wishing he were back in his dorm room with Netflix and familiarity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adventure and Fate

**Author's Note:**

> THIS IS FOR MY FRIEND EMILY. I hope she enjoys it. I wanted to give her a sexytime fic, and the fic originally started out with that in mind, but Jake just sort of took hold of the story and turned it in a different direction. TBH originally Jake was supposed to be a stripper but that idea sort of hightailed it the fuck out of dodge when I started thinking about how Jake would actually get to that point. That would be more of a short story focused on sexytime as opposed to, well, cutesy time, and due to my sexytime fic last night I decided it was time for a nice and long short story about two gay guys findin' love. So, Emily, I hope this meets your needs for fluffy Jake/Dirk!! 
> 
> I'm so sorry if they're out of character. It's difficult trying to age up characters. How will their speech patterns change? How will they remain the same? Blah, blah, blah. Also, Dirk is probably the single kid who has remained the closest in personality to what we were presented in the Beta session/what has been "canon" in the writing world, so it was sort of weird for me to write him on that note. Roxy, however, was fun and easy to write and I sort of just want to pick her up and love her forever.
> 
> Okay, okay, enjoy. Much love!

Your name is DIRK STRIDER, and you are enjoying a quiet Friday night in. Of course, nothing ever goes the way you hope it will, does it? So when you get comfy in your bed, your laptop on and your web browser open to Netflix, you can’t say you’re entirely surprised when someone knocks on your door. It’s 8:00 on a Friday night and your roommate is currently out getting crunk with his friends. You have an inkling that the person at the door is for him, although you can’t be sure. You can never be sure when it comes to college. 

A scowl is already perched high across your features as you swing your legs over the side of the bed and pad across the hardwood floor towards the door. Whoever is standing on the other side of the door sure is persistent—they haven’t stopped hitting the door since they began. You pull on the handle and swing the heavy door open, probably putting too much momentum into the movement, but your goal is to scare, not to nurture. 

Of course the person who greets you is Roxy. 

“Heeeeeeeey, Dick,” she drawls, waltzing into the room the minute you open the door. She sashays her hips and sits down on your roommate’s bed, having utterly no regard for his (or your!) personal space. “Figured I’d come see what you’re up to. By the looks of it—” she casts a pitying look over at your bed, where your laptop currently sits, neglected—“you’re in need of a little pick-me-up or somethin’.” 

“Yes, thank you for your wonderful manners, Roxy. I’m so thankful you decided to walk right into my room, unannounced, and then tell me that my Friday night plans are bogus. Also, stop calling me Dick, I’m not a porn star.”

“Aren’t you?” she asks, laughing. She pulls a small container out of her purse and takes a quick swig from its contents. “And I never said your plans are ‘bogus.’ Dirk, have I _ever_ used that word? C’mon, if you’re going to put words in my mouth, at least try to make them in-character.” 

You attempt to glower in her general direction, but the effect is somehow lost in between your amusement and your big anime sunglasses. You watch as Roxy lays herself across your roommate’s bed, flinging a hand over her forehead. Her skirt has ridden up and is exposing quite a bit of thigh. You think about going over to her and making her more presentable, but you know that if you do, she’ll just crack jokes at you and let the problem happen all over again. 

As she’s lounging, making herself comfortable in your room, you wander back over to your bed and sit down on it. You cross your legs and look at her intently. “So, to what do I owe this unusual and mostly unwelcome…pleasure?” 

She laughs and attempts to pull herself into a sitting position. It takes a few tries, but eventually, she gets her torso in a linear fashion. She swings her legs over the edge of the bed and hums in the back of her throat. “We’re gonna go clubbin’ tonight,” she says, grinning a toothy, lipsticked smile. 

You wish you had been drinking something at that exact moment, so you could spit it out with shock at her words.

“Excuse me!?” you ask, raising an eyebrow so high, you’re sure she can see it over your shades. “I wasn’t aware you were taking control of my own decisions from now on. Thank you for informing me, master. I now know my place.” 

She blows a raspberry at you and waves her hand in a dismissive manner. “Dirk, you’ve always gotta be so, I dunno, _melodramatic._ ” Each syllable pops from her mouth and there’s no question about it, the girl’s drunk. “I’ve got two fake ID’s in my wallet right now and a car I’m borrowing from a friend. There’s a great club just little ways out of town and we’re gonna go, get smashed, find us a fuck buddy, and have the night of our lives.”

“You’re already halfway to your destination,” you point out. She smirks at you and takes out her flask, taking a swig from it before gesturing at you with it. You look at it and then back at her. “I’m not drinking anything if you expect me to drive,” you say. 

“Who said you’re driving? I’m driving.”

You take that as a joke and push the flask away. “If my destiny has already been decided—”

“It has,” she interrupts.

“—I better get dressed. So get the fuck out, I don’t want a girl ogling my junk while I change.” 

She snorts as she stumbles to her feet, standing with wobbly and uneven balance as she nearly totters back onto the bed. “I’ve got no interest in your gay dick,” she slurs, using the wall for support. “We’re gonna find you a man to take home and call your own tonight, yes we are.”

“Get out,” you remind her, pointing to the door as you pick up a pair of jeans and begin to rummage through your dresser drawers for a clean pair of boxers. She laughs, saying “Okay, okay, what is it with you fairies and your privacy,” before she makes her final _exeunt_ from your room. 

In what you’re sure is record time, you find yourself a clean pair of boxers (a miracle in its own right) and slip on a pair of dark jeans. You find a simple grey long-sleeved shirt and pull it on, liking the way it hugs your frame gingerly. You glance at yourself in the mirror and nod in approval: the shirt hugs your abdomen nicely, showing off your abs without being _too_ obvious. Your jeans look pretty nice on you too, you surmise, as you admire your own ass in the mirror. You grab your trademark orange hat before slipping into a simple pair of tennis shoes, and then you’re out the door, not bothering to lock it on your way. 

You find Roxy in the hallway, talking to one of your hallmates. You think her name is Jade, but you’re not sure. “C’mon, girlfriend,” you mutter, grabbing her arm and literally dragging her away. You won’t deny it: you enjoy the way she stumbles as you tug her off balance. She yelps in surprise, shouting obscenities at you and expressing her discontent with your behavior. 

After the little scene is over, you let go of your friend. “Lead the way, oh wise one,” you tell her. She saunters out of the building and into a car you’ve never seen before, which is parked right around the corner. The lights flash on and you suppose that must be the right car. She steps out of the driver’s seat and moves to the passenger’s seat, doing a sarcastic little bow, as if she is gracing you with the ability to drive. 

You climb into the driver’s seat and familiarize yourself with the layout of the car. Once you’re ready to get going, you put the car in drive and ask Roxy for directions.

==> Contemplate the circumstances of your adolescence that put you at this very college with one of your long-time Internet best friends, but without the other two that helped complete your motley crue. 

What an oddly specific request! You decide it is in your best interest to dwell on such vivid memories, however. It does good to think of the past every now and then, does it not?

When you were fifteen, you had three other best friends. They were the best friends a kid could ask for, and they supported your thing with robots to top it off. Together, you had started to play a game called Sburb, which was, well, weird. To say the least. You met the teenage versions of your guardians and fought alongside weird alien things that had small candy corn like horns and unnervingly sharp teeth. The game ended eventually, of course, and it deposited you back in the right timeline (whatever that means, exactly). You returned to your normal lives, as if only a few hours had passed. It was as if the game had never happened. Which was unnerving to all four of you, but everyone tried to hide his or her discomfort behind an agreement to meet up. 

Plans were made and by the end of that very month, you were all squished into the LaLonde abode, trying to cope with just meeting each other. You immediately took a liking to Roxy. She had been the person you were closest to pre-game, arguably, and she was definitely the person you were closest to in the subsequent years. There was Jane, who you adored for her innocence and child like behavior. Outwardly, you pretended to be indifferent and disinterested in her plight or in her desires. She saw right through you, though, and just laughed every time you tried to pull the “too-cool-for-anyone” persona. Then there was Jake, who you had had a crush on for quite some time. He was every bit as adorable as you had imagined he would be. He had the smallest of buck teeth that caused him to have a slight speech impediment. He spoke as if he were from the late nineteenth century, which was the most adorable speech tick ever, in your opinion. He was practically a caricature of a British Explorer—saying things like “confound it” and “kerbobled” and other odd, out of fashion forms of British slang. Every time he spoke, it was as if you were transfixed. Of course he was far too oblivious to notice how in love with him you were.

The visit only lasted a week, but by the end of the week, you were pretty sure you were in love with Jake English. You tried to speak to Roxy about it the last night you were there. She sort of dismissed you—laughing about how gay you are, but how “Jakey” probably has his sights set on “Janey.” That was the end of the conversation, and you let it drop. 

But that didn’t stop you from, a month later, confessing to “Jakey” about your crush. You hadn’t been planning on telling him all about your undying love or whatever—that was a move saved for corny chick flicks. It just sort of happened one night when you were on pesterchum with him. He was whining about being unattractive or some other teen-angst-bullshit topic, and like the moron that you are, you told him. “I think you’re attractive. Really fucking attractive.” 

Jake, of course, had had no idea how to respond. He had said something along the lines of, “Oh, chap, I do hope you are bamboozling me at this very moment, as opposed to being honest, because I wouldn’t know what to do if this was you being sincere!” “You’re telling me that you find me attractive? Well, that’s very flattering, but I don’t believe that I bat for that specific team, I’m so sorry…” Blah, blah, blah. 

And that was when you and Jake started to drift apart. Your sixteenth birthday came and went, and with the advent of junior year came a shit ton of tests and college applications to consider. Jake was busy dealing with the same things, of course, and the two of you just sort of fell out of touch. You still spoke on occasion, sure, but it wasn’t the same. 

You and Roxy had picked the college you did for a few simple reasons. It was almost obscenely gay friendly and the general unspoken rule of drinking underage was “Just don’t get caught.” The school was a small school, and as your supplement for your application, you had sent in a small robot that was designed to notice when pencil’s were becoming dull and then to sharpen said pencil’s. You weren’t entirely surprised when you received your acceptance letter (with a giant financial aid package, of course), and you weren’t surprised when Roxy received her letter, either. 

Senior year passed by in a blur and then you were off to college. You had a roommate who stayed out most nights getting drunk and/or high with his buddies, which was fine by you. Your classes were entertaining and enlightening and you were pleased to know that, all things considered, this was the right school for you. 

Then you were dragged from your dorm room by a so called “best friend” and made to go to a club with her. 

“And that’s why I’m drunk tonight,” Roxy says, waving her arms with a flourish. You realize she has just told you a life-changing story about her life and you had been zoned out for all of it.

“That’s fascinating,” you reply. She is too drunk to notice your sarcasm or to notice that you had not been paying attention to her. 

She continues to give you directions to the club, which is much farther away from your college than you had anticipated. You’ve been on the road for a whole hour, and you’re about to tell Roxy you need to turn the car around and go back to campus when she says “We’re here.” 

It’s a small building, but the sign on the front is brightly lit with rainbow fluorescent lights. It’s called “the Cocksucker.”

“…you’re taking me to a gay bar?” Dirk asks, not even bothering to hide his skepticism. 

“It’s ladies night,” Roxy replies.

“…it’s ladies night. At a gay bar?” 

Roxy looks at you with a hazy expression. “Fuck you,” she says, and then she opens the car door and stumbles out of the car with an indignant air. You stare after her silhouette for a moment before sighing, turning the engine off, and stepping out of the car yourself. 

By the time you catch up with Roxy, she flings a fake ID at you. The ID is of a 23 year old man named Dean Stroganoff (what the fuck, Roxy?) who has brown eyes, blond hair, weighs 150 pounds, and is 5’11”. All things considered, she really did do a good job picking an ID that matched you. 

She presents her ID to the bouncer, who gives her an almost pitying look before admitting her. You step up and hand him your own ID, a wave of anxiety washing over you. Why couldn’t you have just stayed in your dorm, where it was warm and safe and you could have stayed up all night watching American Dad! and Futurama and not, well, be at a gay bar? 

The bouncer—to your surprise and chagrin—lets you into the joint, handing you back your ID with the smallest of smiles. You want to feel skeeved out but are on too much of an adrenaline rush to be thinking critically about what a creepy smile from a bouncer might mean. 

You feel like you’re having sensory overload the minute you step into the building.

Flashing strobelights. Smoke. Loud laughing and talking. Even louder music, the bass thumping through your veins and matching the beat of your heart almost immediately. You stand in the middle of the entrance, transfixed by everything that’s happening around you. Suddenly Roxy appears at your side and now it’s her turn to grab your elbow, screaming “Come on!” into your ear before dragging you to the dance floor. 

Oh, God. There’s a stage. There’s a stage and there are half naked men writhing on top of it. 

==> Find the bathroom, hide in it, and cry until Roxy is ready to leave.

No. Despite what your fake ID may say, you are a _Strider,_ and a Strider never turns down a challenge.

You allow yourself to be dragged into the center of the dance floor by a very intoxicated Roxy Lalonde. Immediately, she finds a girl (who is probably just as drunk) and begins dancing with her. You watch Roxy dance for a moment—damn, that girl can shake her ass—before you let your limbs loose and allow yourself to get in touch with the beat. 

The song ends and a gravelly voice hits the speakers. “This is DJ Stridenasty, here to rock your world.” The crowd cheers up at the man standing in the corner, a hand already poised atop a set of turntables, his other hand gripping his headphones. He wears a long sleeved red shirt and smirks down at the crowd before letting lose a whole new set of fresh beats. 

It doesn’t take long for you to find yourself really getting into the beat of the song. You’ve never been much of a dancer, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re _bad_ at it. You have fun predicting the next beats, trying to remain in tune with the music. Sure enough, in record time there’s a guy dancing his way over to you. 

He’s got dark hair, although you can’t tell what color it is specifically in the poor light. His clothes are dark, too, and he has thick-rimmed glasses that hide the color of his eyes. Light glints off them and his lips twist into a smirk as he moves his body against yours, keeping in tune with your own movements. 

Damn. This kid has got talent. You’re pleasantly surprised by what a decent dancer the kid turns out to be. You brush against him, taking hold of his hips at one point and using them as leverage for one particular move. He turns so that his back is facing yours and your bodies melt together, sinew and movement, each step and shudder timed together perfectly. You wonder how old he is—he looks to be about 18, but looks are deceiving, after all. He grinds into you and thoughts momentarily fly out of the window. You underestimated him. He’s not just talented—he’s really talented. 

You can’t help but wonder what that body would be able to do in the bedroom.

You push the thought out of your mind and attempt to instead throw yourself into the music. You throw yourself into the beats, into your pulse, into the movements of his body. You start to wish that you had taken that drink from Roxy after all. Dancing is so much easier (and so much less embarrassing) when you’re too drunk to remember it the next day. 

The song ends and almost immediately a new beat picks up. This one’s a little slower, and the boy’s body responds to the music. His movements become slower, more languid, and, dare you think it—more sensual. He turns around and dips towards your neck, pressing a kiss against your collarbone before he moves away, his body writhing perfectly to the beat. 

And that’s when it hits you. Who this mystery dancer is. 

“Jake!?” you gasp, placing a hand on his shoulder. The boy stops his gyrating and looks at you, his eyes going wide behind his glasses. “…D…Dirk?” he responds, mouth falling open in shock. You nod, maybe a bit too enthusiastically, and slide your hand down his arm towards his own. “Jake…what the fuck?” 

Moments later, the two of you are out of the club, away from the haze and the music. It’s startlingly quiet and cold outside. The bouncer stamped your hands and you lead Jake away from the club, away from the faint sounds, towards a more private place. 

You repeat your question. “Jake. What the fuck?” 

He sighs and gives you a look that is full of regret and embarrassment at the same time. “I’m going to school around here,” he says, and tells you the name of his school. Damn. It’s close to your school. “Sometimes I come here and, uh. Well, confound it all, Dirk. You’ve caught me. Sometimes I come here and bring home guys.” 

You narrow your eyes at him (a gesture lost behind your sunglasses). “I thought you weren’t gay.”

“Yeah, when we were 15!” he explodes, and the outburst almost shocks you. “Enlighten me, old friend, how many 15 year olds know of their sexuality definitely? Not very many. I fell into that category. Besides, I never claimed I was not gay. I just said that I wasn’t attracted to you.”

Ouch. You move away from him, already muttering things like, “Well, I see that now” and “Yeah, no kidding.” You stand up abruptly and begin to walk away. The only reason you stop is because Jake’s hand is on your forearm, and he’s tugging you back, actually _growling_ in frustration. 

“No, Dirk, stop taking things in the absolute worst way imaginable. Stop. I was scared when we were 15, okay? I was utterly horrified. I found myself in a conundrum that I wasn’t capable of solving at that age. It was too clichéd for an adventurer like me, to fall in love with one’s best friend. I’m sorry that it resulted in you getting hurt.” 

He pats the sidewalk beside him and you sit down, albeit a little reluctantly. He looks at you, and you realize he’s _really_ looking at you. The type of soul-searching look, where you just know that he actually cares about how you’re going to respond to his statements. You look down at your hands and think back to the past three years of your adolescence—realizing you liked Jake, only to be rejected and then ignored. It hurt. There’s no doubt about that. It hurt badly enough that you were convinced you would sock Jake in the face if you ever happened to run into him. But there had been no chance of _that_ , was there? Not when you were in the middle of Bumblefuck America going to college and he was off on a deserted island? 

“Your accent has softened,” you find yourself telling him. Which is true. He’s no longer speaking in ancient British slang, and he’s no longer twanging his words as if he was from Liverpool or something. 

You’re surprised when you see a slight flush creep up Jake’s cheeks. “Well, it has been three years since you last saw me,” he reminds you, looking at your face before casting his gaze down to the ground. You wonder if he can figure out where your eyes are behind the dark expanse of sunglasses. You guess not. 

“I’m sorry that I reacted the way I did,” you offer to him, which makes him look up and raise an eyebrow at you. “It’s not your fault that you turned me down when we were 15. That doesn’t mean that I don’t want to see you, or that I don’t want to catch up with you.” 

Jake shakes his head. “No, it should be me who is apologizing. I’m sorry for perhaps leading you on when were so young, and for then essentially deserting you with no comment. That was very unkind of me.” Well, how the fuck are you supposed to respond to that? Because he’s right. It was unkind of him. It was cruel. You spent entirely too long wondering what the fuck you had done to deserve such treatment. No matter how hard you thought, you couldn’t come up with a reasonable thought as to what you may have done to deserve him _deserting_ you. But what you said was true: just because he was a jackass in the past, doesn’t mean you’re not interested in how he’s doing, or, maybe, it doesn’t mean you’re not interested in _him_. Still. Wow, you’re pathetic. 

==> Stop with that teen-angst self deprecation bullshit and talk to Jake about his apparent homosexuality. 

“So, you’re gay?” 

==> The smoothest award. It goes to you. Aren’t you supposed to be a Strider? Smooth with words and great with the ladies?

Jake isn’t a lady. 

==> The principle’s the same. What’s wrong with you? Blunt force isn’t the most attractive quality a person can have. 

You feel mildly schizophrenic as you turn off the little voice in your head that criticizes your every move. You look at Jake, trying not to back down by looking away even a second too soon. Jake doesn’t even fidget or try to change the topic. He simply responds, “Yes, I am,” and that’s the end of that. “How about you? Why are you here?”

“Roxy dragged me out of bed,” you say, and you can’t help but let a trace of bitterness lace your voice. Jake laughs, his face lighting up.

“Roxy’s here!? Do you guys go to school together? Where’s Jane?”

_You’d know all of this if you hadn’t dropped off the face of the earth,_ you think to yourself. “Roxy’s here, yeah. Last I saw she was dancing with some broad. As for Jane, she’s at a culinary school a few hundred miles north of here.” Jake’s grin never leaves his face. He says a few dorky things in his stupid British accent. You’re pretty sure he just said “Blimey,” which has to be the cutest and worst thing you’ve ever heard come out of an actual human being’s mouth in your entire life. 

“Are you here with a boyfriend?” Jake asks you, his face betraying his genuine curiosity. You almost laugh at him, if only for the idiocy of the question. Also, the irony. “No,” you tell him. “Why else do you think I was out on the dance floor?” 

“Oh,” he says, and pauses for a moment. “I don’t have a boyfriend, either.”

“I’d hope so, especially not with the way you were dancing with me tonight,” you say, sneering at him as you say it. This time he blushes for real, a look of true offense flashing across his face. He looks as if he’s about to huff and puff at you, but you put a hand up to stop him. “Easy, bro. Calm it. Just kidding around. You’ve got some pretty slick moves there, my friend.” 

And then Jake is blushing for an entirely different reason. “I wouldn’t have been so forward if I had known it was you,” he says. “I saw you, you looked attractive, I decided to dance with you. And then you turned out to be my long time best friend from forever ago and I happened to make a complete fool of myself in the process of trying to score a date. Excellent, wouldn’t you say?” 

You nod at him. “You are clearly a master at wooing the boys. The master, it is you.” Then, because, really, what the fuck, you place a hand on his and look at him in what you hope is the most earnest expression you’ve ever mustered in your entire life. “But you didn’t _have_ to have failed at the whole ‘score a date’ plan.” 

Jake’s eyes flash to look at your hand on top of his, before they return to look at your face. He searches you, looking for a hint of insincerity or untruth. He finds none. Now, whether that’s due to the patented Strider nonchalance, or because there really isn’t any negativity in your features, he’ll never know. But you’ll know, and you’ll know that it’s because, in all honesty, you feel only excitement and hope at the idea of taking Jake out on a date. There _has_ to be a reason you guys met up after being away from each other for so long. Right? 

“I’d like that,” Jake says, and then he laughs. You lean forward and press a quick kiss against his lips before you stand up, lifting his hand in the process. 

“Come on,” you say, tilting your head in the direction of the parking lot. “I’ve got a car, and I haven’t had anything to drink. Let’s go someplace and talk some more in an environment with a more appropriate ambiance.”

He nods at you, looking enthusiastic, before casting a look at the club. “What about Roxy?” 

“I’m pretty sure Roxy’s otherwise occupied,” you say, and make a silent promise that you’ll text the poor girl an apology and offer to pick her up in the morning from wherever she’ll sleep tonight. That seems to be enough of an answer for Jake, because before you know it, he’s racing towards the parking lot, asking you over his shoulder which car is yours. He’s hollering about adventure and excitement and danger and all of the shit he used to spew to you when you were just young teens. His mood is infectous: before you know it, you’re laughing along with him, racing to catch up with him, quickly unlocking the car and hopping in before peeling away towards nights unknown.


End file.
